PAYING IT FORWARD: CARR RECEIVES POLARIS MENTORING AWARD

FRANCES CARR, Ph.D., knows first-hand the lifealtering impact a skilled mentor can have.

In high school, her biology teacher saw Carr’s potential, encouraged her at every turn, and urged her to pursue a career in science. Later, Carr’s doctoral advisor gave her “the confidence to believe in myself, that I could do science in a meaningful way and be successful in the career I’d chosen,” she says.

Carr, a professor of pharmacology in UVM’s Larner College of Medicine and a UVM Cancer Center member, has spent her career returning the favor. For her success in inspiring and guiding a diverse range of UVM undergraduate and graduate students, Carr received the 2023 Polaris Gender Equity Outstanding Mentorship Award.

Carr is an equal opportunity mentor, who strives to help her male mentees as much as those who are female or non-binary. And she believes firmly that men can effectively mentor women; her doctoral advisor was male. But she also knows that women in the sciences face a tougher road than men, and that female scientists like her can function as models for their female students.

“Seeing women in successful science careers and putting together the life they want is valuable for them,” she says.

That fact has not been lost on the student body, says Noelle Gillis, B.S.’15, Ph.D.’21, who nominated Carr for the Polaris Award, with five co-signees.

“Her strong female attitude, her strong female example attracts a lot of female students,” Gillis said, who is in the second year of a postdoctoral program at the University of Minnesota after working in Carr’s lab as both an undergraduate and doctoral student. “A lot of ambitious female students gravitate to her lab.”

Carr’s superpower is her commitment to giving individualized attention to each of her mentees, Gillis says. “She takes the time to get to know you and learn how each person needs to be pushed and poked and prodded and advised into getting where they want and being the best scientist they can be,” Gillis said.

“I want to make sure my students get to where they’re trying to go,” said Carr, a molecular endocrinologist who was elected a fellow in the American Academy for the Advancement of Science last year.

“For each one, their success matters to me a lot. Their success is my reward.”

Alan Howe, Ph.D. will serve as Associate Director of Cancer Research, Training and Education Coordination for the UVM Cancer Center.

As Associate Director, Dr. Howe will help oversee cancer-related educational and career development opportunities spanning from high school to undergraduates, to graduate and medical students, to junior faculty. Dr. Howe will join the UVMCC senior leadership team and will coordinate programs that support the development of future cancer scientists and practitioners.

Dr. Howe received his B.S. in Biochemistry at the University of New Hampshire in 1990, his Ph.D. in Tumor Cell Biology from Northwestern University in 1996, and postdoctoral training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently, he is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology with a secondary appointment in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics.

Dr. Howe has been a member of UVM’s Cell, Molecular, and Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program for nearly twenty years and is a full member of the UVM Cancer Center’s Cancer Host and Environment research program. Dr. Howe’s research, consistently funded over his 20 years at UVM, focuses on how cells interpret their microenvironment to control their shape and movement.